Posted on 04/18/2008 8:31:09 AM PDT by Gabz
Taking an early morning walk this time of year is a singular treat, like Dorothy stepping out of Auntie Em’s house into the color and sound of Oz. The same things that are always there, only instead of Winter‘s drabness, Spring’s full and glorious color. Each walk is accompanied by a symphony of birdsong, a riot of color bursting everywhere. Fallen jasmine blossoms scatter themselves on the ground like the famed yellow brick road, and blooming things pop up everywhere like the fabled Munchkins.
And then, as if the colors and sounds aren’t enough, just to add a little spice, spider webs and silk threads abound. A nice, soothing walk interrupted by a moment of terror as an invisible spider web smacks you across the face. Frenzied panic as you claw at the strands, trying to get them off, as if each strand is composed of skin eating acid. Your heart is pumping, your adrenaline is flowing, because some spider, somewhere, manufactured those invisible strands. It’s not the spider webs themselves we object to—it’s every human’s fear of the monster in the closet. If there’s a spider web, then it stands to reason that somewhere close by, possibly on the very strand stuck to your face, is the spider that spun it.
To top it all off is the humiliating thought that a fellow human is watching you do the spider dance, snickering while they sympathize, glad it‘s not them. Your dogs are laughing themselves silly, watching their human leap and scratch at an invisible assailant. Heads cocked to one side, they seem to be asking the canine equivalent of—“Do you have fleas? You need a bath?” Isn’t it wonderfully amazing how our clothes reflect the changing seasons? My youngest son, even at four years old, was a very opinionated clothes horse. He told me in no uncertain terms what he wanted his Easter outfit to be. Since I was going to be the one making the outfit, we had a little more leniency in choices. He wanted Peter Rabbit grass green pants, and a matching vest and tie, so off to Wal-Mart we went. He was very specific about what he wanted on his vest and tie. If I remember correctly, we found the perfect print, a V.I.P. print by Cranston Print Works. Either someone at Cranston had been listening to a child describe Easter, and April, or they were very much in touch with their inner child.
My son informed me that the fabric for his vest and tie had to have green grass, daffodils, Easter eggs, bunnies, chickies, robins, and other assorted critters and Spring flowers. That’s about the most inclusive summation of Spring I can think of. The colors were matchless, too. Peter Rabbit grass green, sunshine yellow, browns and pinks and blues and whites—all the colors that best describe Spring, printed on a single piece of exactly right fabric. We couldn’t have custom designed a more fitting tribute. Needless to say, my son’s fourth Easter was a great success. Hope your Spring is as happy and colorful and perfect as that one was!
April isn’t just colors—it’s sounds. The earliest spring peepers croaking from every ditch—if frogs are a measure of health, then our area should be winning awards! Some nights you can barely hear yourself think for their welcome racket. Whippoorwills—their distinctive cries are never so loud as right now. The Great Horned owls are sending out their mournful hoo-hoo’s, serenading us late into the night. The sounds of tillers and tractors, and the first strains of lawn mowers add their hum and buzz during the day like a well orchestrated symphony.
Time to get ready for some serious gardening! A few start earlier, and some wait. If your ground is ready and the temperature is right—go for it! The very worst that will happen is another cold snap and you’ll have to start over. If not, then you’ve got an excellent head start!
Many good reports came back on the Crista tomatoes, the ones resistant to Tomato Spotted Wilt. Keep in mind, this is not the wilt that lives in the soil and causes a perfectly healthy plant to look as if it’s had boiling water poured on it just as it starts to bear. TSW is the one that stunts the plant, or kills it outright. There is another variety that some people had success with last year, one called Amelia.
Good reports back also on the straw bale gardening! Many people tried it and seemed very pleased. Less weeding, less disease and insects. Keeping the straw bales watered seemed to be the biggest challenge! Whether you’re doing plants for squash and cukes or starting your own from seed, remember to keep the stems dusted with some kind of pesticide. It will help keep the squash vine borers from getting a toehold.
A few other reminders for this month: Don’t forget to fertilize your lawn and shrubs, but do remember to wait until the end of April or first of May. Done too early, fertilizer can cause the grass to be too tender and green. If we get another cold snap, the tender shoots will be harmed worse. If you’re going to put out warm season grass seed, end of April is a good time to do it. Bermuda and Centipede won’t germinate until the soil temperature is around seventy.
Azaleas don’t need to be fertilized until after they’re done blooming, but other shrubs will benefit from some liquid fertilizer— both regular and acid kind, mixed with some Epsom salts, equal parts of each. Then when you do your lawn, they’ll be ready for the granular fertilizer. The liquid fertilizers and the Epsom salts give them a little bit of a jump start and help to correct the soil ph, especially if the shrubs are close to the foundation of your house.
Get out there and go have some gardening fun!
Sounds delish! Today was the day from hell and tom will be worse. I cheated and ordered a pizza. I work 10+ hour days, and trust me—I am not sitting on my butt! I keep threatening to get a pedometer, but I think the results would terrify me! Put it this way—I’ve walked through a pair of socks every day this week! LOL
Used to do a lot of crafts—when I was younger and had more energy! Now I mainly work and write!
Rotenone is an organic dust/spray. Last year they pulled it, changed their minds, reinstated it, pulled it again, re... We can’t get any dust, and the spray doesn’t work as well. It was the only thing we found that would work on potato beetles around here.
Yep, I planted peas, lettuce, spinach, and a couple other things weeks back, and they don’t look like they’ve done much of anything growth wise. My kohlrabi is coming along, but probably because I grew the seedlings in a container and transplanted them into the garden.
I hope the rest of my spring stuff starts moving along and grows before the summer heat causes them to bolt. I’m probably just be impatient though.
I do all the cooking. When we fist met she invited me over for dinner ... she was still preparing the meal when I arrived. She took a pound of hamburger meat an put it in boiling water like you would do pasta. Either she was very smart or she could not cook. I found out that she was both, smart but could not absolutely cook!
I can cook, and love to. Trouble is, if I cook it, I will eat it! LOL
Re: Your Nectarine tree.
Dousing it with a hose so the water freezes over the blooms might save them; they do that with citrus crops. If it’s not too tall, you might be able to throw a sheet or a tarp over it. Mainly, you need to keep the cold air off of the blooms. (So don’t ask my why letting it ice over helps, because I don’t know!)
This happens to us up here in Southern Wisconsin from time to time with peaches, pears and apples.
I’ve TRIED to make sure I buy late-bloomers to guard against this, but we’ve had frosts and hard freezes after May 15th.
Then, all IS lost and you just have to wait for next year. :(
Prune after it’s bloomed. That’s the rule for nearly all bloomers. :)
Pruning Azalea
There are two pruning techniques used for azaleas: thinning and heading. Thinning refers to the removal of branches back to the main trunk or another branch. This method is used to remove leggy branches that extend beyond the canopy of the plant, remove damaged or diseased wood, or reduce the size of the plant. Thinning allows light to penetrate the shrub, encouraging growth on interior branches. You can thin at any time of the year without causing significant impact on flowering, growth or cold hardiness of the plant. How-ever, to reduce the impact on flowers the following year, prune just after flowering in the spring.
Heading refers to the cutting back of a branch, not necessarily to a side branch. This method is used to reduce the size of a plant, create a hedge or to renew old overgrown plants. Renew overgrown plants by cutting them back to within 6 to 12 inches of ground level. This practice results in abundant new growth by midsummer.
The best time to renew azaleas is before spring growth begins. This allows sufficient time for next year’s flower buds to form in midsummer, and for new growth to mature and harden off for winter. Renewal pruning before spring growth, of course, means that flowers are sacrificed for that year.
After renewal pruning, prune the tips of new shoots when they are 6 to 12 inches long, to encourage branching and a full canopy. Thin out new shoots emerging from the old stem. Keep the soil moist during the period after severe pruning.
http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC1059.htm
“What do I do about pruning raspberries?”
Well, you really screwed the pooch planting everbearing and spring bearing berries together, LOL!
The easiest way to figure this out is to just lop them all down in the fall when they are done, or be lazy like me and lop them down in the early spring.
Your spring bearing canes will produce fruit first, the everbearing canes will produce a later, heavier crop.
So, if you want to make all your juices and jams at one time in the fall, I’d pick the earlier berries, freeze them whole on a cookie sheet, then pop them into a ziplock when frozen. You can add those to the later berries you pick and go from there.
Or, you can just eat them all as they come and enjoy a long crop of berries. :)
I have “Heritage” berries which are everbearing. I lop them all down in the spring and get one big fall crop from late August through October some years. I prefer the late crop because those little ‘Picnic Bugs’ aren’t around to bother the fruit, and the wasps and bees aren’t as aggressive in the fall as they are in the spring & summer. (If I miss a few berries, the bees & wasps hone in on them which makes picking and adventure!)
Lack of room.
I can see that the bushes are different. The ones that bore fruit last fall look dead, the other ones have redder looking, smooth bark and are putting out leaves right now.
My blackberries look pretty shot, too, except for one. I wonder if the winter was too hard on them. I was really hoping for more from them by now.
The one berry bush that's going to town and looks like it will be trouble to control is a yellow one a friend gave me from her garden.
I have Heritage raspberries as well. The other is Latham, I think.
I live in central Texas in the hill country about 35 miles NW of Austin. We have a big deer problem in our area. There are more deer than anything else. They eat EVERYTHING in sight.
The garden is still so wet in most areas I can not get to it, but I have several raised beds with lots of mulch paths that I can get to the ones I plant early things in.
I used the oak whiskey barrel concept for my potatoes, in that I used an old above ground pool shell to build up with compost the soil so the mixture is light enough for potatoes to grow without getting washed out or soil too packed (black dirt) for the potatoes to grow. It has taken me a few years to build up enough soil to do the barrel concept. I sure do get the puzzled looks when visitors inquire about the pool in my garden space.
Now if I can keep out the neighborhood rabbits from snipping off the tops of my peas I will have lots of steamed snow peas in a few weeks. Last year from spring to fall around 7:00 p.m. there was a parade of rabbits from the neighborhood that would invade the back yard. Old men rabbits stretching themselves out and all sizes down to the very small ones came in from all directions as though I had NO clue where they were headed.... my garden of course.
Both are good varieties. I want to add the Kiwi Gold to my patch, too.
The first couple of weeks can be a surprise, especially after spending the winter working out regularly.
**** GROOOOAAAANNNNN*****
You’re not kidding.....
Another dismal weekend behind the Redwood Curtain. It’s 34 and damp this morning which is at least 10 degrees below normal. Not sure what we will do after Church but I doubt it will involve the garden and the weather channel says 4 more days of rain >:(
In Colorado we water the apples trees and other fruit trees...the thin layers of ice can protect the buds. Flowers will be gone though.
Thanks for the pings.
Great to get the tips on snails on here. I have lots of them this year. Also, I help Mom with her flower beds and they are full of them. We bought the commercial stuff for them but it is toxic to animals, and she has a small dog.
It’s been a busy spring for me, but this week I did get out and spent some time in my garden, and flower beds.
I have the most beautiful, huge Clematis blooming right now. I don’t remember it ever blooming this early, but I have three, one blooming, the other two full of buds.
Peonies are up now, and I have lots of bleeding hearts in bloom.
I did some landscaping last fall and accidentally dug up some of the bleeding hearts (my favorite flower). I took them and planted them in my Mom’s elderly neighbor’s yard, and they came up recently. She’d forgotten I planted them, and all the little neighbor ladies have been hoving over them, admiring them. She is the envy of the neighborhood now!!!! When they asked her what they were, she said “I don’t know, they just came up.” Then I reminded her, and now I am her hero!!!
We weren’t sure they’d come up after moving them in the fall, as I’ve always separated and moved them in the spring.
The apt. complex my Mom lives in is occupied by elderly women, and their lives evolve around who can have the prettiest flowers. I moved Mom there last year to be closer to me, since I watch after her and she wants to live independently. So, I have to do the heavy work in her garden.
The other ladies watched her closely after she moved in, sizing her up. We are now in the running for the most beautiful flowers there. Last year I bought her some beautiful oriental begonias, and they were the talk of the neighborhood. The tulips I planted for her last fall are also beautiful.
I LOVE spring.
Spring and Fall are my favorite seasons. I love all the flowers and colors in them both...and Easter Candy. And Halloween Candy; funny how those things tie in together, LOL!
This past weekend was our big kick-off at the garden center. We had a $25K day on Sat. and a $15K day, today. Man, was I selling the stuff! Saturday night I came home, had supper with Husband, nodded off in my chair...I was in bed by 7:30pm and didn’t MOVE until the alarm went off at 6am. Those first full days outdoors really zap me, but I’ll re-gain my stamina...I’m not as tired today, even though I walked/ran all over our 2 acre nursery a number of times throughout the day.
Come Monday, I’ll be ordering like a Madwoman to fill up the rest of the yard. I can’t wait! These first few weeks are the most fun. Everything’s blooming and fresh and flies out of here because people are just crazed after our long winters.
I am planting up my outside planters with a mix of red pansies, leaf lettuce and white alyssum. Husband got a wild hair today and is re-bricking our back walk that desperately needed it. The hens won’t leave him alone so I’m hearing, “Getthehellouttahere!” every few minutes, LOL!
All of my tomatoes and peppers are coming along (inside, still) and will move out to the greenhouse in another week or so. I need to start “Will Rogers” Zinnia, “Sonata” Cosmos and some Tithonia within the next week. Then, I’m drawing a map for Husband and he’ll have to do most of the planting because I won’t have time.
My Clematis aren’t up yet, but my daffodils and tulips are half-up, and the peonies are just poking their new heads through the soil. Last fall at work we had leftover bulbs so I just FILLED the berms and display gardens with bulbs. They’re looking lovely; especially the blue Squill and the yellow daffs we planted together. Stunning! :)
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